TOP TECHNOLOGY NEWS

A new Leica lens is always something to get excited about. The German company might be having some trouble taking its rangefinder cameras into the digital age, but when it comes to glass, Leica is pretty much at the top of the game.

The latest lens is an 18mm ƒ3.8 ASPH made for the M series rangefinder cameras, both digital and film. On a film body like the M6, you’ll have an ultra-wide view. Probably too wide for most, and the maximum aperture of ƒ3.8 is pretty slow. That combo of angle and hole means you’ll not be getting much of that famous Leica bokeh, the sweet way the Leica lenses render out of focus highlights.

On the M8 digicam, however, things look up. You’re still stuck with a slow lens, but the lens becomes a 24mm equivalent.

Aside from one or two standout announcements, it has been a slow couple of days at the Mobile World Congress here in Barcelona. And like CES in Vegas, the crowds are thinner than in previous years, which has meant both more time and space to look at the fauna. Keep reading for a (small) gallery of the Best in Show. The above picture, by the way, is not a restaurant display. It was in a booth, somehow promoting cellphones.

Watermarks is a kind of science project with an artistic bent. The project uses high-powered projectors to throw killjoy warnings onto the walls in public spaces. These warnings consist of a straight line indicating the level of sea or river should global warming really kick in, along with a scary message about the extremes of weather ("strong winds!")

The main reason we’re interested is the use of projectors, but sadly the only detail we’re given is that they will be "digital".

Add infrastructure improvement to the list of things social networking is trying to tackle: GPS and mapping companies now use community feedback to improve everything from road information to traffic alerts and speed-trap warnings.

Tele Atlas, which provides maps to its corporate parent TomTom as well as to other navigation companies, on Wednesday rolled out its first geographic database containing information based on map users’ feedback.

Did you know that almost every SLR lens you own is a macro lens? Sure, you might actually have a specialty, close-focusing objective, usually a zoom of some kind which will allow you to take shots a few inches from your subject. If so, great. Go snap some pics.

If not, you can press pretty much any lens to the task. All you need to do is to unscrew it, flip it 180º and hold it in front of the camera’s lens-hole.

A new iPhone exercise gadget will let you listen to music while it listens to your heart.

Announced Friday, iTMP Technology’s SMHeartLink is a wireless bridge device that collects data from different types of sensors, such as heart rate monitors and biking sensors. After you’re done with a workout, you’d press a button on the SMHeartLink, which automatically sends the information to your iPhone via Wi-Fi.

Software companies big and small should live in fear of Lim Ding Wen — a nine-year-old in Singapore who’s already authored an iPhone application.

His painting app Doodle Kids, free in the iPhone App Store, doesn’t do much besides scatter colorful triangles, squares and plus signs on a virtual canvas, but he’s way ahead of his time. Doodle Kids has been downloaded 4,000 times over the past two weeks.

"I wrote the program for my younger sisters, who like to draw," Lim told Reuters.

Lim started using a computer at age 2. He is fluent in six programming languages, and he’s completed 20 programming projects. Lim is wise to get an early start on the App Store, where some developers are striking it rich with their iPhone apps. For example, independent developer Steve Demeter, said he made $250,000 in just two months with his iPhone game Trism.

Lim’s father Lim Thye Chean is a chief technology officer who also writes iPhone applications.

An international report might have given away Apple’s plans to launch the next iPhone in June.

Etisalat, a mobile carrier in the Middle East and Africa, announced in a local newspaper that the iPhone 3G will soon be supported in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

The report adds that "the next version of the device, which is due out in June, will be launched in the UAE at the same time."

The report doesn’t cite a source, but AppleInsider speculates the information came from Mark Davis, program director for iPhone at Etisalat, who previously confirmed the 3G’s Etisalat launch date to be Feb. 15.

A June launch date for the next iPhone isn’t very exciting news, as it’s kind of a no-brainer: The first and second iPhones launched in June 2007 and July 2008, respectively.

Little is known about Apple’s next iPhone, but some developers and analysts believe the new device will have a strong focus on gaming.

The memo we sent out regarding megapixels seems to have got caught up in the mail on the way to South Korea. Specifically — squeezing more and more photo-sensitive dots onto teeny-tiny chips is a recipe for noisy, low quality images with a perversely high file size. Who is guilty this time? Samsung.

It looks like the company will be announcing a 12 megapixel camera phone at this year’s Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

Inexpensive netbooks are quickly maturing to suit business users, and already a certain type of professional is showing interest in the puny devices — accountants.

Accounting Web compiled a list of notebooks best suited for accountants. Two netbooks made it to the list: Asus’s Eee PC S101 and Samsung’s NC10 — for their spacious keyboards and larger hard drives. The NC10 also got kudos for sporting a battery that reportedly lasts seven hours.